Evidence from an amended indictment against former President Donald Trump, regarding his actions in connection with the storming of the Capitol in 2021, has been made public.
This is according to a decision that Judge Tanya Chutkan in Washington DC made on Thursday. Chutkan rejected the Trump side’s request to hold the documents until after the presidential election, and on Friday they were released to the public, according to Politico.
The 1,889-page material is part of the redrafted federal indictment that special prosecutor Jack Smith filed last fall in light of the Supreme Court’s ruling that a president enjoys immunity from prosecution for official acts.
However, much of the material is heavily meshed, which means that the details that emerge are limited, according to BBC.
The case concerns Trump’s attempt to have the 2020 presidential election annulled and his actions on January 6, 2021, when Trump supporters staged a deadly storming of the US Capitol.
The material includes, among other things, transcribed court proceedings, interviews and speeches related to the case. Some of what has now been released is material that was already publicly available.
Trump is the Republican presidential candidate in the November 5 election. His lawyers argued that releasing the documents constituted electioneering. Chutkan, for his part, considered that the material is of high public interest and that it is electoral influence not to publish it.
Facts: The storming of the Capitol and the indictment of Donald Trump
On January 6, 2021, members of the United States Congress gathered in the Capitol to count the electoral votes of the presidential election and formally designate Democrat Joe Biden as the winner and next president.
At the same time, tens of thousands of supporters of Donald Trump met nearby for a political mass meeting. There, Trump repeated his false claims of systematic voter fraud and claimed he was the real winner. He urged his supporters to go to Congress and “get the hell out of there.”
Parts of the crowd did as he said. The protests turned violent when hundreds of people stormed the Capitol, clashed with police, vandalized and entered one of the chambers.
Nine deaths can be linked to the storming, according to AP, and more than 700 charges have been filed. One of them is a federal indictment against Donald Trump. Special prosecutor Jack Smith has formulated four counts of indictment, including attempted fraud against the United States government, attempting to stop a public act and attempting to stop persons from exercising their constitutionally protected rights.
The indictment is considered the heaviest of the ongoing lawsuits against Trump, who denies all charges. If the ex-president is convicted, he risks a maximum of 20 years in prison.